[Sensational!] Red Mercury Mentioned in leaked Diplomatic Cables

I'd like to take credit for this one but it was brother who did the research and discovered two new mentions of the mysterious substance Red Mercury
in the new wikileaks cables.

It seems as though the US is treating this imaginary substance as though it were real...

Another (partially edited for space constraints):

This is interesting, especially considering the IAEA says it isn't real:

Following the arrest of several men in Britain in September 2004, on suspicion that they were trying to buy a kilo of red mercury for £300,000,
the International Atomic Energy Agency made a statement dismissing claims that the substance is real. "Red mercury doesn't exist," said the spokesman.
"The whole thing is a bunch of malarkey."[8]

I just thought you'd like to know, considering how long this stuff has been talked about in the conspiracy world.

For those of you who want to get the originals for yourself, go to cablesearch.org... and use the key words red mercury.

Here are links to the cables (If you are unsure of whether or not you could get in trouble in your country for doing so, please do not click these
links.):

Here's a good article about the 3 men arrested for trying to buy Red Mercury: What is Red
Mercury

From the article:

The five main theories are:

1.) That red mercury is a reference to cinnabar, a naturally-occurring mercuric sulphide. The red pigment derived from cinnabar is known as
vermillion.

2.) That it is a reference to the alpha crystalline form of mercury iodide, which changes to a yellow colour at very high temperatures.

3.) That it is simply referring to any mercury compound originating from the former Soviet Union. The 'red' tag would simply be a legacy of the Cold
War era.

4.) That it is a ballotechnic mercury compound which just happens to be red in colour. Ballotechnics are substances which react very energetically
when subjected to shock compression at high pressure. They include mercury antimony oxide which, according to some reports, is a cherry red
semi-liquid produced in Russian nuclear reactors. This theory contends that it is so explosive that a fusion reaction - a nuclear explosion - can be
triggered even without fissionable material such as uranium.

5.) That it is a military codeword for a new nuclear material, probably manufactured in Russia.

Red Mercury as a ballotechnic Samuel T. Cohen, the "father of the neutron bomb", claimed for some time that red mercury is a powerful
explosive-like chemical known as a ballotechnic. The energy released during its reaction is enough to directly compress the secondary without the need
for a fission primary in a thermonuclear weapon. He claimed that he learned that the Soviet scientists perfected the use of red mercury and used it to
produce a number of softball-sized "pure fusion" bombs weighing as little as 10 lb (4.5 kg), which he claimed were made in large numbers.[17] He
went on to claim that the reason this is not more widely known is that elements within the US power structure are deliberately keeping it "under
wraps" due to the frightening implications such a weapon would have on nuclear proliferation. Since a red mercury bomb would require no fissile
material, it would seemingly be impossible to protect against its widespread proliferation given current arms control methodologies. Instead of trying
to do so, they simply claim it doesn't exist, while acknowledging its existence privately. Cohen also claimed that when President Boris Yeltsin took
power, he secretly authorized the sale of red mercury on the international market, and that fake versions of it were sometimes offered to gullible
buyers.[17] Cohen's claims appear to be difficult to support scientifically. The amount of energy released by the fission primary is thousands of
times greater than that released by conventional explosives, and it appears[who?] that the "red mercury" approach would be orders of magnitude
smaller than required. Furthermore, ballotechnic materials are those that do not explode, so it is difficult to understand how their energy could be
used to produce compression at all.[original research?] Additionally, it appears there is no independent confirmation of any sort of Cohen's claims
to the reality of red mercury. The scientists[who?] in charge of the labs where the material would have been made have publicly dismissed the claims
(see below), as have numerous US colleagues, including Edward Teller. According to Cohen,[17] veteran nuclear weapon designer Dr. Frank Barnaby
conducted secret interviews with Russian scientists who told him that red mercury was produced by dissolving mercury antimony oxide in mercury,
heating and irradiating the resultant amalgam, and then removing the elemental mercury through evaporation.[18] The irradiation was reportedly carried
out by placing the substance inside a nuclear reactor.[19]

If you want to find a copy of them yourself, you know how to get them.

*I'm doing this as a courtesy to the community, who are interested in such things. The resources are there for those of you who demand to know more.
I recommend google or any number of cablegate search engines.

If you want to find a copy of them yourself, you know how to get them.

*I'm doing this as a courtesy to the community, who are interested in such things. The resources are there for those of you who demand to know more.
I recommend google or any number of cablegate search engines.

You need to provide links to these cables. Its a requirement of the site to provide links to externally quoted material. We don't want people
claiming they found cables that dont really exist now, do we?

You seem to have forgotten to post the relevant header from the wikipedia page you sourced, specifically...

Red mercury was described by many commentators[who?], and the exact nature of its supposed working mechanism varied widely among them. In general,
however, none of these explanations appear to be scientifically or historically supportable.

The abstract is also relevant and quote worthy...

The term was adopted in the 1970s from redmercuriciodide (mercury(II) iodide) as part of several hoax substancesof uncertain
composition purportedly used in the creation of nuclear bombs, as well as a variety of unrelated weapons systems.

Redmercuriciodide is a poisonous, scarlet-red, odorless, tasteless powder that is insoluble in water.

However, samples of "red mercury" obtained from arrested would-be terrorists invariably consisted of nothing more than various red dyes or
powders of little value, which some suspect was being sold as part of a campaign intended to flush out potential nuclear smugglers.

The hoax was first reported in 1979 and was commonly discussed in the media in the 1990s. Prices as high as $1.800,000 per kilogram were
reported

The term was adopted in the 1970s from redmercuriciodide (mercury(II) iodide) as part of several hoax substancesof uncertain
composition purportedly used in the creation of nuclear bombs, as well as a variety of unrelated weapons systems.

Redmercuriciodide is a poisonous, scarlet-red, odorless, tasteless powder that is insoluble in water.

However, samples of "red mercury" obtained from arrested would-be terrorists invariably consisted of nothing more than various red dyes or
powders of little value, which some suspect was being sold as part of a campaign intended to flush out potential nuclear smugglers.

The hoax was first reported in 1979 and was commonly discussed in the media in the 1990s. Prices as high as $1.800,000 per kilogram were
reported

You need to provide links to these cables. Its a requirement of the site to provide links to externally quoted material. We don't want people
claiming they found cables that dont really exist now, do we?

The links have been added. But the method for finding the cables and copies of them had already been posted (reducing the risk of legal consequences
should they exist).

I just hope no one goes to jail or gets in trouble.

*If any of you are on a military connection, perhaps you should wait until you are using your own connection before viewing any of the cables linked
to here.

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.